WHOSE BLOOD?

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Opening Prayer

Lord, today I want to tune my heart and mind to the frequency of the Spirit. I will trust and obey You.

Read REVELATION 19:11–21

^[11] I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. ^[12] His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. ^[13] He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. ^[14] The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. ^[15] Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. ^[16] On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. ^[17] And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, ^[18] so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.” ^[19] Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. ^[20] But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. ^[21] The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

Meditate

Jesus, through his death on the Cross, made “a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world” (Book of Common Prayer).

Think Further

The vantage point of John’s visions shift. God’s victory is presented from multiple views. To understand these things, we must look beneath their surface and unravel what they mean by using our main tool, the Bible.

John’s perspective changes. He is now transported to an earthly vantage point. He sees heaven open and the all-conquering Jesus descend to earth. All the descriptors reinforce this to be the same Jesus we have already met, the awe-inspiring One, “Faithful and True” (11), in dazzling garments with stars in his hand and a sword coming from his mouth (Rev. 1:12–20; 2:12), “the sword of the Spirit… the word of God” (Eph. 6:17)—the sword with which he will save, judge and destroy. The battle imagery may seem gruesome, even politically incorrect, to us—but these pictures of justice coming to God’s enemies probably had a different effect on John’s readers, a community familiar with Rome’s cruel practices of making sport of killing fellow Christians in the arena. Even today my young granddaughter perfectly understood the gory final battle in the Lord of the Rings as a righteous picture of good defeating evil. Today’s painful but powerfully explicit images imprint on our minds that Jesus’ victory was final.

Militaristic imagery may seem inconsistent with the Prince of peace, but in establishing God’s shalom, all false ‘peace’ must be destroyed. In his earthly ministry Jesus said, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). World systems that are leading its people into chaos, rejecting the authority of Christ and persecuting and killing Christians will experience that sword. Those who reject Christ as the Lamb slain for sin will meet him as the Lion who is coming to judge the world.

Apply

Jesus destroyed “him who holds the power of death” (Heb. 2:14). Thank God that this victory is already complete.

Closing prayer

Lord Jesus, I’m ever so grateful that because You died, I can live.

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